Moderation Reminder
For the first time in years, I’m getting multiple substantive comments per day here on ErosBlog that aren’t making it through the first-time-commenter moderation. Of course, it’s all post-election triumphalist culture-war and political trolling. My favorite line so far: “I was told some cuck runs this retro site and thinks it is Reddit, hence anything that offends the snowflake, written in the comment section, never sees the light of day.”
The snowflake/cuck in question explained all this back in 2006, in the ErosBlog FAQ:
Question: Why did you delete/moderate my comment?
Answer: Most likely because you weren’t nice. I ask ErosBlog commenters to be civil, friendly, polite, nice. And I enforce that. We don’t welcome flaming, aggressive debating style, snark, or even strong sarcasm. Yes, I do break these rules myself, sometimes. But I live here.
I am actually quite curious which of three things is true: (a) ErosBlog got linked in some hostile space, steering the current crop of trolls to us; or (b) I have enough reach on Mastodon now that my posts there, or perhaps especially my hashtags, are falling under hostile eyes, and leading them hither; or (c) the trolls have always been ErosBlog readers, now stirred and emboldened by the recent election.
Similar Sex Blogging:
Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=33447
Thanks to the moderators for keeping this a friendly site
Imagine complaining that moderators moderate. Imagine seeing your comment being removed as some sort of an own against the comment remover.
I know, right? Or as that complainer added, with the usual deniable half-threat: “So much for free speech and stopping the pornopocalypse by adding to online censorship uh? We shall see what is what.”
Got to be honest, I’m worried about what’s going to happen to sites like you, OF, Pornhub etc now
If somebody comes into my house and does something that I don’t like, I will tell them once to stop. If they don’t, I kick them out of my house. This site is your “house” and needs to be treated as such. As a guest, I live with that or leave. Also, I think the world is too politicized and I appreciate the somewhat safe space. Thanks much for that.
Did you guys have an election over there?
Fuck that, can we talk about sex?
Sorry, JA, but you can’t talk about sex without politics entering the chat, not in the USA in 2024. That’s pretty much the point of this post. Talking about sex is considered a hostile act by the rising political faction in the USA, unless it’s sex that’s in perfect submission to patriarchy and patriarchal gender roles. And the rising political faction is noisy, violent, and perfectly willing to leave anonymous threats in these comments.
I always have tried, and still do try, to keep the overt politics to a minimum on ErosBlog. At an earlier stage of my political development, you could find me saying things like “ErosBlog is not a place for politics.” Those posts and comments are still in the archives. But I said those things before I grew to understand that sex, and discourse around sex, is inherently political.
Kevin, you’re welcome! I do my best.
Colin, you’re right to worry. I used to joke with a friend about what would happen to ErosBlog under Mike Pence’s Glorious Christian Republic, and the joke is just about as not-very-funny when told about the Vance Reproductive Imperium. Suffice to say, I think every adult site that’s based in the USA or operated by US citizens has to consider the potential for having to go dark for legal reasons over the next 2-8 years. I’m open-eyed about the possibility that ErosBlog may not survive what’s coming. With any luck, my archival strategy will ensure that the content remains available somewhere; it’s still a big world and a big internet.
Bacchus. I am aware of what is going on in the world, but so much of it depresses me I like to drown it out with the sounds of sex.
I could rant at length about global politics. The wars, climate change, rape and starvation, but I’m bored of it. In my lifetime things have definitely got worse.
So the good folk of the US voted in Trump again. The first time was funny, but doing it again…….?
I live near Finisterre, the end of the known world. I like to look out over the Atlantic from the clifftops and imagine America doesn’t exist.
I have to say that I think this is one of the most liberal blogs when it comes to moderation. The rules and guidelines are clear, and I’m pretty sure I’ve posted stuff that disagrees with you on occasion with no fear of being deleted, only anticipating debate.
If the troll wants pointing to some blogs which do take down comments disagreeing with the blog owner I could point them to some.
But that said, it seems like pure trolling by the kind of person who can’t bear freedom of speech or thought.
@JA
I’m going to disagree with you. In my lifetime things have definitely gotten better. I was born into a world with more wars and suppression than we have now. When bigotry was taken for granted, and conformity the norm. The overall trend has been more rights, more tolerance, more legislation against hatred. To the point where Liz Truss bemoans how her hands were tied in her pursuit of demonisation.
The current swing to the right in politics is relatively recent, over the last ten years or so, and is definitely a trend down. Whether it resets without global level war as happened in the forties, I can’t foretell, but I hope it is a temporary thing, and resets long before the world gets back to where it was when I was born into it. Hopefully people have more now to lose, and fear of war outstrips xenophobia this time.
And in the meantime, I do wholeheartedly agree with drowning it all out in the sounds of more sex please.
Bacchus, we’d like cheesecake for dessert please!
If someone has a punishment kink that they act out by daring people to moderate their comments, how are you supposed to deal with them? By deleting their comment, but also posting the text un-attributed, so they don’t get as much direct feedback. That could have been someone Else’s plea for attention, theirs could have been lost in the crowd.
Ah, the years of reading about subtle powerplays have made you wise indeed ;)
@JA: All in all, I am more afraid of the left-wing taking over in many countries, as has happened here in the USA for eight agonizing years. The UK just appalls me with its PC, DEI nonsense, and lack of respect for conservative traditions. I saw this start in 1969 when I was attending Gonzaga University in Spokane, Washington. I am an old dog with a long memory. I used to be a staunch Democrat but that has changed. I believe in moderation: the Golden Rule.
I’m a firm believer in property rights – and a blog site such as this, is private property. While it might be open to certain uses by invited friends, that doesn’t mean that actions by questionable friends can’t be disavowed at any time, and that the welcome to those uses won’t be revoked if abused. So moderate away!
@Kevin and @finagle: I will state that within my memory, the more “progressive” stance appears to have bettered the world – maybe not all of it, but at least in part. Women have the right to vote – the right to own property – the right to free movement – gays and lesbians aren’t being murdered as often – people of different races can marry each other – and everyone has been gaining space in the marketplace of ideas.
Progressive movements aren’t perfect, but most rarely call for the execution of those that don’t agree with giving everyone as many rights and freedoms as possible. And in my experience – far too many conservatives do make that call. Which is probably overstatement, but I’ve seen far too many “minorities” literally murdered and always “othered” by conservatives, who rarely get called to account.
I must say I am enjoying these comments. It’s a credit to you Bacchus that people with different views are expressing themselves politely and with intelligence. I dare say you have been busy with the scissors too.
@fingale. I think we agree, but are maybe talking about different time scales. I feel privileged to have lived in a world of civil liberties, freedom of expression and movement, but in the past ten years have seen those rights eroded. The world has become more autocratic. I have lived in 6 different countries across Europe, Africa and the Middle East and now find it much more difficult being a foreign immigrant.
I think more sex is the answer. No matter what your political persuasion everyone has a smile and a beneficent attitude after a good fucking.
Somebody witty once said that no one ever lay on their deathbed wishing they had had less sex.
On a slight tangent…
Are you aware about the recent DDOS on archive.org, and similar attacks on other library archival systems?
Does that impact your archive strategy?
Are you also aware of recent DNS poisoning attacks and systemic ‘anti-DDOS’ censorship? I’ve had problems particularly with Cloudflare blocking legitimate traffic, as well as Chrome based browsers mystically being unable to DNS resolve some adult sites? And mobile ‘adult’ site blocks.
Cloudflare looks like a straight forward attack on VPN usage, trying to force users off VPN and is not adult site related.
The browser based problems seems more stealth pornocalypse, as it doesn’t impact any non adult sites.
I’ve found my mobile data provider a problem recently because for some reason iOS 17 seems hostile to my VPN setup and I’ve gotten messages that sites like duckduckgo and archive.org are blocked by my mobile provider unless I give them a credit card number to validate I’m happy to see ‘adult content’. Not sure why iOS 17 has started dropping VPN connections spontaneously though, but it’s highlighted a problem I’d ignored.
Finagle, those tangential things do affect my archive strategy, but given that my archive strategy is hoped to be robust in a future hostile world where it’s hard to predict what will or won’t be legal in the realm of possession and distribution of porn, you’ll understand if I don’t go into details. As for the things that potentially could affect ErosBlog’s present ability to remain online in the face of shadowy hostile actors whose motives in undermining the internet as a free speech platform may not be specifically opposed to porn in particular, I probably don’t have the level of understanding that we all might hope but I do have some basic awareness, and your comment was helpful in expanding that.
I recently experienced some adult-verification requests that seemed bizarre until I realized that the IP in use by my VPN provider in that moment was causing me to be geolocated (spuriously) in an American state that recently started demanding adult verification for some sorts of adult traffic. That was easily fixed; now the internet thinks I’m a Canadian, eh.
Justin, your punishment kink comments remind me that you are mischievous man, but also that I used to actually get people whose comments here were intended to goad people into interacting with them in a way that satisfied their apparently-sexual desire to be scolded. I don’t think that’s what my recent troll intended, but it has happened here, and not just once!
Finagle, in a comment from yesterday you wrote “I’m pretty sure I’ve posted stuff that disagrees with you on occasion with no fear of being deleted, only anticipating debate” which I mention only to say that (a) I’m a whole lot more lax with people who are part of the regular commenting community here than I am with first-time drive-by strangers; and (b) I don’t mind disagreement at all as long as it’s civil and polite, or especially if it sounds friendly. A lot of hostile political commentary doesn’t make it through the filter even though it’s technically civil/polite, but at some level it’s snarky or sarcastic or it just sounds very stiff/cool/unpleasant. In your specific case I don’t remember ever having a bad reaction to anything you posted, although in truth I do have a terrible memory. :-)
All of these moderation decisions are made on-the-fly while balancing different factors. There’s one political comment in this thread that contains a single word that crosses the civil/polite line, but in the moment when I saw it I felt that the comment as a whole was friendly so I let it pass. On a different day in a different mood, nobody would have ever seen it. One nice thing about the ErosBlog setup is that I don’t have any obligation to let anyone create an unpleasant experience here.
When people say “don’t mention politics” they either mean “don’t mention things that might get me in trouble” (and that’s an inherently political fear) or “don’t mention topics that I find uncomfortable because of suppressed guilt”.
@Bachus,
I think I picked up on the same comment, and resisted the urge (eventually) to respond. I broadly agree with your logic I think, the politics was their personal context.
The point I was making a priori was I feel safe commenting here. I was a regular commenter on another blog we both read till it turned very ad hominem and I realised I fundamentally disagreed with the blogger. So I stopped commenting, and now just lurk. I do think about your response to any comment, but I do feel you, like me, are ok with a well argued as opposed to emotive disagreement. That said, glad I haven’t ruffled feathers, perhaps being a touch sensitive to it has kept me farther inside the boundaries of polite comment than I thought 😀
Glad the techie comment helped. If you ever want to reach out about techie stuff you have an email address, albeit one that’s not regularly monitored. Ping me on that an I can give you a better one for techie discussions. I confess I’m still reeling from the realisation that someone might think the Internet Archive anything but a blessing.
Finagle I am ride-or-die for the Internet Archive but it is super-fragile against state-level threat models. One bad court decision or one hostile autocrat and it could be just gone, for all current intents and purposes.
Now, I do have a quasi-religious faith in Brewster Kahle’s commitment to his project, which means that I assume without evidence that he does actually have a continuity-of-data plan that’s at least somewhat robust against hostile governments. By which I mean some sort of subset of the backups that’s offsite beyond the reach of any subpoena, under a quilt of security-through-obscurity. (You can’t subpoena what you don’t know about and you can’t send the data stormtroopers for backups if you don’t have an address for their SWAT team to visit.)
finagle and Bacchus – thanks for fighting the good fight. A site I’ve been going to for years recently started blocking a search term I’ve been using. Over the years I had bookmarked a good deal of the content and, so far as I can tell, the content remains available. I can live without it, but do not wish to.
I’ve been known to download and store cached information (both on my computer and on air gapped hard storage) that people want to preserve. if it comes to that, remember me. Bacchus you can have my contact information on request, anytime.